Azriel
by Durndal
Summary: I have risen from the dead (a very long nap...) to bring you another chapter. Its shorter than the rest but I still need a good plot. (Yeah right.) Look for my Fallout story coming soon.
1. The Barrens

Have you ever had a really bad day?  Your alarm clock fails to go off, you burn a hole in you best shirt, you spill coffee on you pants in the car on you way to work, the copier eats your mid-term report and to top it all off your boss is in a bad mood.  If you think that's bad try waking up in a dark alley in the Redmond Barrens with no memory of who you are or how you got there, and your only clue is a letter from some one you never heard of?

      Dear Azriel,

      You have been in a terrible state for over a year now, I know you can not remember who you are but that is not important.  You are currently in Seattle, in a run-down area known as the Barrens, if you are alive to read this then you have passed my test and I would like to offer you a job.  You should find your self clothed in a body suit and vest, at the small of you back is a holster and pistol, a Colt Manhunter to be exact, and there is an extendable baton hidden in your left cuff.  If you decide to accept my job offer please contact Mr. Grey at Bill's Guns and Ammo store in downtown Seattle.  If not, accept the body armor and weapons as a gift and you may do what ever you wish with the 2,000 nuyen stored in your hip pouch.

                                    Logan

I found everything he had said to be true, I even found three extra clips in the pouch along with the nuyen.  My head felt like it had been run over multiple times by a freight train but my limbs responded normally.  As I stood up I heard a snicker from farther down the dark alley.

      "Well, well, looks as if you woke up on the wrong side of the Barrens, chummer," said a low grating voice.

      I tried to see who had spoken but the alley was too dark for me to see very far unaided.  I blinked and suddenly I could see as clear as day as if my desire had wiped away the darkness.  There were two of them, fairly large, one was tall with tusks and chains wrapped around one arm, the other about the same height but not as big around, he was holding what looked to be a knife and I could make out a pistol on his hip.  The ganger with the gun spoke again, "All we want is your cash, chummer.  Hand it over and maybe we'll let you live."

      My body tensed up and shifted positions almost unconsciously, I could smell them now, neither one had bathed in a long time.  They must have felt threatened by my movement because the big ugly one with the tusks stepped forward and drew a large blade that might have been a sword if it were any longer.  The one who was talking shifted his feet into a fighting stance I recognized as Pentjak-Silat...then I blinked again and a thought occurred to me, how had I know what fighting stance that was when I couldn't even remember my own name.

      "Looks like this one wants to play, it's your hoop chummer.  GET HIM!"

      I must had looked vulnerable for a second, and the two gangers charged me; their mistake; I didn't even realize I had moved until I saw the baton come out of my cuff and extend I one flick of the wrist, the ork flinched as I whipped out the baton, I grabbed his arm and slammed the baton down onto it, by the sickening snap I heard and his howling, I judged that I had broken his arm.  The other ganger, tried to come at me from behind but I spun out of the way just as his knife dug deeply in to his partner's thick hide.  Blood sprayed everywhere as I grabbed the ganger from behind, shifted him slightly and slammed the baton into the side of his head.  I got blood on my face but I didn't bother to watch him hit the ground as I delivered a backhand to the orks howling jaw.  He stopped howling and, instead, began to make a gurgling sound.

      "Your dead, fragger!!" the remaining ganger yelled as he pulled his pistol from its holster.  An Ares Crusader, it probably wouldn't puncture my body armor but I didn't take the chance.

      Just as he pulled the trigger, I came in low, grabbed the gun from the bottom and lifted it into the air.  The bullets shot harmlessly into the sky as I crushed the gangers hand and grabbed him by the face.  I lifted him up a few feet and saw the look of terror in his eyes through my fingers just before I put his head through the synth-brick wall.

      I was astonished that I was still alive, that I was uninjured and that both my assailants were dead by my own hands.  I couldn't believe what I had done...I didn't believe what I had done, it felt like I wasn't even in control of my own body, that I was just along for the ride.  Then I realized that I had regained control of all my functions; that I was myself again.  I looked at what I had done, the ork laying on the ground behind me with a knife sticking out of his ribs and his head bent at an odd angle, the other ganger, I now realized to be a man, with his head imbedded in synth-brick and his feet six inches off the ground.  I bent down and retrieved the Crusader, then searched the two bodies; surprisingly it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.  I came up with an extra clip for the Crusader, a knife, a nice pair of boots I didn't need and 400 nuyen in script.  These guys hadn't had much success as of late.

      I realized the sun was coming up when I looked out the mouth of the alley and saw an orange glow around the skyscrapers.  I blinked and the alley fell into darkness again, I could barely make out the bodies of the gangers.  I stepped to the mouth of the alley and looked at my surroundings.  The Barrens was a network of trash piles and ruins with a few good buildings thrown in for good measure.  The street was a line of asphalt that ran between the heaps of garbage.

      I stepped into the street and began to walk toward the skyscrapers and the rising sun.


	2. Your Neighborhood Gangs

Getting out of the Barrens wasn't easy.  The place is a maze even in the day light and I stumbled onto hostile ganger territory more than once.  They were gracious enough to give me a running start before they decided to run me down with their motorbikes.  I guess they needed the target practice.  I dodged through and empty apartment building and ran down the back alley.  I emerged at the bottom of an old car park with barbed wire encircling the building and armed gangers guarding the entrances and exits.  Apparently I had stumbled into another gang's fortress.  

Two of the guards spotted me and alerted the others.  It looked like I wasn't going to get out of there after all.  Three of them came at me with cubs and knifes.  I caught the first cub with my forearm, circled my arm around it and whipped it up into the owner's face.  Then I chucked it at the ganger come from behind.  I barely missed the knife that came in from the side but I grabbed the gangers arm and threw him to the ground.  Then I took off running, the rest of the guards had guns and I didn't want to play "dodge the bullet."  Since I couldn't get out of the car park from the bottom floor I decide to go up.  I made the bottom ramp as the first guards started to shoot, then I heard the unmistakable sound of motorbikes but I put it out of my mind.

At the top of the ramp I found two elves with what looked to be homemade shotguns.  I grabbed the barrels and wrenched the guns backwards, then I elbowed the elves in the back of the head as I ran between them.  The rest of the levels were the roughly the same as I made my way to the top of the car park.  There was a reason why this place was so well guarded, it was the ganger's base.  As I came up the ramp to the top floor I found the barrel of a Ruger Superwarhawk up my nose and several weapons pointed at me.

"What gives you the right to intrude on our territory!?" shouted the elf with the Warhawk.

"Well...I didn't know this was your territory…I was just trying to get away from the bikers and I ran down the alley into this car park and…"

"Shut up!!  You led the Infernos here!?!"  The elf was female, as tall as I was, skinny but well muscled.

I was trying to figure a way to get out of my current situation when I heard gunshots and loud whoops echoing from the floor below.

"Shit!! IT'S THE INFERNOS!!" The female elf was shouting orders but she still hadn't taken the Warhawk out of my nose so I didn't have a chance to move.  She was shouting at someone behind her and was looking in that direction when I heard a motorbike engine grow very loud.  I reached out and grabbed the female, pulled her close to me, succeeded in shoving the Warhawk farther up my nose and fell backwards just as a motorbike flew through the air where my head had been and landed where the female elf had stood.  It was then I realized that through all this mess I had held on to the Ares Crusader.  We rolled partway down the ramp before I succeeded in stopping us.  She gave me a very dirty look, yanked the Warhawk out of my nose and slammed the butt of the pistol against my cheekbone.  My face broke out in lines of pain and I rolled away from her.  The female elf made to kick me, missed, and turned to run back up the ramp.

I lay on my back for a second feeling the pain in my face subside, then I got to my feet and followed the elf back up the ramp.  She stopped and I almost ran into her.  Why she stopped was pretty simple, the scene looked pretty hopeless.  Many of the gangers had crowded around some burnt out cars trying to defend them selves against the bikers, the Infernos, who were riding around firing their submachine guns into the crowds of gangers.  The gangers didn't seem to have any automatic weapons or very many semi-auto weapons to boot and many of them were lying on the ground in pools of blood.  Considering most of this was my fault, I wasn't surprised to find myself running at the nearest Inferno, he wasn't riding round the groups of gangers, he was laughing and he was surrounded by some pretty tough looking orks and trolls.

The bodyguards facing me took notice and began to fire their submachine guns.  The Crusader spat six rounds and two trolls fell.  I vaulted a wrecked bike and the crusader spoke again.  An ork flew sideways as the bullets took him in the head.  By this time the Inferno's leader had stopped laughing and was giving orders then he pulled out one of the biggest pistols I have ever seen.  It must have been his own design because in only fired once but, man, what a bang!  He missed of coarse, the Crusader had made sure that he didn't get a chance to aim.  My shots had smashed into his chest and had spun him around, the cannon shell he loaded into that pistol had splattered the head of one of his guards all over the car park and detonated a motorbike.  The rider of the bike learned to fly, but I'm sure the pavement down bellow made the trip a short one.  I reloaded the Crusader.

Some of the Infernos were fleeing now, I had killed the leader and they wanted nothing to do with me.  The gangers who had been pinned now began to fight back as they saw hope for victory.  As I was helping remove the last of the Infernos from the car park I felt something cold and hard come to rest, roughly, at the back of my head.  At least it wasn't up my nose.

"I should shoot you dead where you stand," came the cool voice of the female elf.

"I'm sensing a 'but' coming around here somewhere," I said staring straight ahead.

"BUT you helped us, you saved my people," I felt the barrel of her Warhawk ease off the back of my head.  I relaxed.  "Who are you?  You look like some corper gun but if that where true you would have taken off first chance you not, not saved the day?"

"My name, I think, is Azriel," I said.  "I don't know what I am, but I was trying to get to downtown when the Infernos cam chasing after me.  I ended up here and since I brought the Infernos with me I figured it was my job to get rid of them."

"I'm Slash and we're the Builders.  We're a group of people who believe that the Barrens should be a safer place and we accept anyone who is willing to help but most don't want to help, they just want their own little kingdom.   Now what do you mean you think your name is Azriel?"


	3. A Hitting Pavement

Slash and I had a nice little conversation over the letter this "Logan" had left on my unconscious body. Then we got into discussing the usefulness of automatic weapons and armor piercing bullets. She seemed as knowledgeable about weapons as I was...not that I had any clue I knew these things, most of it just flew out of my mouth.

After talking about combat tactics for several hours, she offered me a place to stay and a relatively warm meal. I accepted, feeling pretty worn out after the fight and the chatting. She was right about the relatively part, the food was almost down right cold, but it was food and I was famished. I made a pig of myself...well as much of a pig as one can in the Barrens with limited food supplies. Slash gave me a mat and blanket to sleep on and I gratefully passed out, not listening to them plan their expansion now that the Infernos were at their weakest. They may have good intentions for the Barrens but a gang is a gang and to survive they have to expand.

I awoke to Slash's, well not smiling but...mildly chipper? ...face. It wasn't all that bad to wake up to actually.

"Up and Out," She said flatly.

I sat up and looked about. People were moving; as a matter of fact they were packing. Everything. The fire pits were cleaned up and packed, the bedrolls had disappeared. I watched sandbags and barbed wire float past, behind Slash's head, I didn't know sandbags could fly.

Slash looked at me intently before she spoke again, "Like I said, Out."  


I would have made a remark but I saw that she had the Ruger out and safety off. The prospect of having the gun up my nose again didn't please me at all, I don't think my sinuses will ever recover from the trauma.

I didn't ask about the gun or the moving sandbags, I just got up, collected my stuff and left. I couldn't blame her, she had better things on her mind then dealing with me and my identity crisis. I hit pavement and kept walking, hopefully I'd get out of the Barrens before I got into any more trouble.

Fat chance.


End file.
